


a story about love, a story about war

by orphan_account



Category: La casa de papel | Money Heist (TV)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Established Relationship, M/M, Misunderstandings, Past Child Abuse, Rape/Non-con Elements, Self-Harm, Shock, Trauma, i would never., rape is not between andres and martin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-09
Updated: 2020-08-09
Packaged: 2021-03-06 02:09:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,885
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25805656
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Martín wakes up in a room he doesn't recognize, a bed that smells foreign, with a woman he barely remembers from last night in his arms.There are two things wrong with that.
Relationships: Berlin | Andrés de Fonollosa/Palermo | Martín Berrote
Comments: 4
Kudos: 83





	a story about love, a story about war

**Author's Note:**

> pls read the tags !

Martín wakes up in a room he doesn't recognize, a bed that smells foreign, with a woman he barely remembers from last night in his arms.

There are two things wrong with that.

*

He gets up, as slowly as he can, because he doesn't know what to tell her if she wakes up.

He grabs his clothes, and goes to the bathroom in a haze.

There, in the mirror: a man he barely recognizes.

He looks different. He looks like something else crawled into his skin and claimed its place.

There are little tiny scratches on his shoulders, his chest.

He remembers, barely remembers, her on top of him.

He tries not to, but he remembers her on top of him like someone would remember drowning.

His neck is the worst of it, really. Covered in hickeys so deep they actually hurt when he moves his head. It's a slow hurt, the ache of it, and when he raises his hands, the hands that touched her, his hands he can't believe are his, and presses against the purple bruises, makes it hurt-- _it feels good._

Martín wants to choke the life out of himself.

He can hear Andrés saying _I told you so._ He can hear it, now.

Except Andrés will never actually say it.

Andrés will take one look at Martín, spit on his face, and leave.

Martín presses his hands against the bruises harder now, one hand on each side of his neck. There is a lump in his throat the size of Earth herself. There is a hickey on his thigh, too close to a place he doesn't even want to think about.

What is he even going to tell Andrés? How do you apologize for something like this? How would Andrés ever forgive him--

How will Martín ever forgive himself--

A sob forces itself out of his throat, and his hand flies to his mouth immediately, doing his best to muffle any sound.

He doesn't want her to wake up, he can't handle it. Her face is a blur from last night, Martín's memory only muddled with the hands on him, and he knows just how much he doesn't want to see her face, he wants it to stay a blur forever, he doesn't want to close his eyes only to see her behind his eyelids--

He stays like that, extremely still, stiff, his hand pressed against his mouth, tears streaming down his cheeks.

He doesn't know why he is crying.

He did this. He did this to Andrés, he betrayed the love of his life.

Andrés will never forgive him, Martín knows. He has no right to cry.

He is the one at fault here, he destroyed the only good thing in his life once again--

He puts his clothes on without even thinking.

When he is in the bus, he realizes moments are passing by like fast forwarding a movie, 10 second by 10 second, he keeps coming back to himself and disappearing again, like someone has the remote to Martín's life and is skipping scenes.

On the bus, he thinks.

It's a sunny day, and Martín is sweating with his coat on. He doesn't want to take it off, though.

He remembers her taking it off him, yesterday.

The sun is shining so bright that it's almost like the whole world is mocking him.

Martín is about to lose everything, and the sun is shining, bright, big.

He is thinking about the lipstick stain on the collar of his shirt.

He is thinking about Andrés' gaze falling to it, the man's eyes filling with understanding, disappointment, hurt; he is thinking about never seeing those eyes again--

He closes his own eyes, tries not to think, tries not to think, but even when his mind is empty, he can still feel the ghost of her touch on his skin, like bugs are crawling over him, like bugs are everywhere on him, burying themselves deep under his flesh, making a home for themselves there--

He gets a lot of weird looks with how he looks anyway. What's a few more weird looks he gets when he starts scratching at himself like crazy?

When he gets to their apartment, he takes the stairs. He is stalling the inevitable.

Standing in front of the door, he considers not going in.

He can just leave, right then and there, never come back again.

Andrés will never have to see him like this, Andrés will never look at him with hate in his eyes.

Martín can't quite breathe, his lungs burning with each inhale, each exhale.

He knows he has no right to think that. To think about sparing himself the hurt, to think about sparing himself the punishment.

His actions have consequences, Martín knows this.

Martín knows a lot of things. He knows how to drive. He knows how to bake cookies. He knows how to kiss Andrés right at the spot where the man's jaw ends and his neck starts, make him go crazy.

Martín doesn't know what to tell Andrés, now.

He doesn't know how to speak, what to say. His mouth is numb, the weight of his tongue bothering him like it's a foreign object in his mouth.

Martín doesn't know a lot of things.

He doesn't know what he will do with himself after Andrés leaves.

He stands there, right in front of the door, for seconds, minutes, hours--he doesn't know. Time blends together like dirt and water, brown, and he can feel himself swallowing mud, he can even smell it, _he can smell it._

He opens the door with shaking hands.

Andrés is on the couch, sketching on his notebook. The man doesn't raise his head to look at Martín.

Martín feels like a glass at the edge of a table, ready to fall, ready to fall, his water spilling and him shattering into a million tiny pieces.

He doesn't know how he will ever put them together again, after Andrés leaves.

"I've been waiting for you all night," Andrés says, he still doesn't look up.

Martín doesn't want Andrés to look at him, anyway. He never wants anyone to look at him. He doesn't want to look at himself.

They had an argument yesterday. Martín can't even remember what it was about.

No matter how hard he tries, he can't remember what it was about.

He only remembers storming out of the house, going to a bar at the other part of town.

He only remembers running away, from his problems, from Andrés, from himself.

Of course, Martín only remembers running away. He can never forget running away like that.

It's a different kind of shame that settles over him, when he runs away because things are getting a little tough.

It settles over him like a wet blanket, and Martín shivers.

He wishes that were the only thing he is ashamed about.

"I'm sorry," he says, and his voice is hoarse like he has been smoking packs and packs of cigarettes.

Andrés' head snaps up.

Blue meets brown, like water blending with dirt, making everything hazy, hard to see through; and Martín's vision is blurry now, he can barely see.

He can barely look, as Andrés look at his face, gaze travelling down to his jaw, his neck, the collar of his shirt; Martín can barely look as Andrés sees the guilt sticking to Martín like glue, like melted plastic.

Andrés puts his notebook down on the couch, and Martín blinks away tears, tries to blink away the blurriness over his eyes, but that's impossible.

Andrés gets up slowly.

Outside, Martín can see the sun shining big and bright.

Outside, people are living their lives like nothing has happened.

There, Martín stands, as everything falls apart around him, and he can barely even breathe.

He wonders if she is awake, now. He wonders if she is thinking about him the way he is thinking about her, constantly, without even breathing between a thought and the next five.

"Is that all you're sorry about?" Andrés asks, and he looks a little cruel, a lot hurt. "Nothing else you want to say?"

And that's it. The sob that has been building inside Martín's chest breaks free, and he crosses his arms in front of him, lowering his head until his chin meets his chest.

He doesn't want to look at Andrés, he can't.

"I'm sorry," he says, and doesn't swallow, can't swallow anyway, "I'm _so sorry,_ Andrés."

"Say it," Andrés says then, and Martín can feel the man take a step forward. He shakes his head, a little desperate. He can't say it, no way he can. His hands on his arms tighten until it hurts, until it grounds him to the moment because inside his brain, there is a buzzing sound and nothing else, his mind empty and filled to the brim with void. "Tell me why you're sorry."

"No," Martín protests, clenching his eyes shut now, and he is aware he is shaking, head to toe. "I can't, Andrés, please--"

"Martín," Andrés interrupts, and the way he says Martín's name, like someone would say a curse, like it hurts to say out loud--it hits Martín like a punch in the chest, and the little breath he had in his lungs leave him with small sound, nothing left in his lungs now, nothing left anywhere inside him.

"Say it."

"I--" Martín tries, he swears to god he tries, but he chokes on his words, he chokes on the lump in his throat. "I che--"

"Come on," Andrés says, mocks, his voice cruel now, mean. Martín knows Andrés like the back of his hand, the inside of a man's thighs, Martín knows Andrés--he knows when Andrés gets this cruel, it can only mean one thing.  
.  
He thinks about how he will never be able to forgive himself, never ever, for hurting Andrés this bad, this deep.

"If you were brave enough to do it, you should be brave enough to say it out loud, no?"

Martín sniffs. His arms ache where he is gripping them. He can smell the salt water, the wind. He is not inside the room, then. He is on the beach they went for their honeymoon.

Feet buried in the sand, he sees the sandcastle he made. He can hear the waves. The ocean is angry, getting closer and closer to Martín with every wave.

"I cheated on you," he says, and his tears have stopped now. He has nothing else to do, now, there is nothing else left.

He sees the ocean knock down his sandcastle, getting ever closer all the same like it wasn't enough, it's still hungry for blood, and Martín thinks _take me._

Take me under and let me choke until I drown.

He opens his eyes. It takes him everything to look up, and brown meets blue, and Martín bites down on his bottom lip, as hard as he can, so he doesn't start crying again.

Andrés looks a little like his mom, a lot like his dad. It's a silly thought, Martín has never thought about that before, but now--

Nobody else has ever looked at him like that, with so much disappointment, so much hurt.

He wishes Andrés were like his parents, then.

A little beating, and things would be resolved--or at least, buried deep enough so it can't hurt; and they could move past this, past everything; a little beating from the love of his life, if it means he will stay--

He knows Andrés isn't like that, though. See, Martín knows Andrés.

Knows the man will never stoop that low.

He used to think he knew himself, too. He doesn't, apparently. He never thought he would stoop as low as cheating. Yet he did.

_Please, Andrés,_ he thinks, _surprise me._ Surprise me, prove to me how much you are like my parents, I don't care, do anything to me, anything you want if it means you will stay.

Andrés doesn't surprise him. Andrés goes to their bedroom, the walls they painted together, the pictures on the dresser, the bed they shared for so many nights.

Andrés opens the wardrobe where their clothes lived together for a long time, and he removes them, his own clothes, piece by piece.

Andrés removes himself from Martín, inch by inch.

It hurts, it hurts, and that's that. Martín knows he has no right to be this hurt, when he is the one at fault, but--

He is still thinking about her. Her hands on him, her hands everywhere. 

He is still thinking about himself. His hands useless, his hands trying to push her away, weak and frail.

It hurts so much, to watch Andrés walk to the door, his bag in his hand, everything packed inside it, and it strikes Martín funny, how everything Andrés wanted to take can fit in such a small bag.

Andrés left some stuff behind, of course. His favorite cup.

Martín knows he will look at it for a long time after Andrés leaves. Drink from it to feel a piece of Andrés against his lips for one more time, drown in the water he poured into the cup, drown in his own guilt, his own sadness.

Andrés stops, in front of the door, hand on the knob.

He turns around, slow and steady. His hands are shaking, Martín knows. Yet Andrés turns, slow and steady.

His eyes are filled with tears, and Martín knows he will never forgive himself for this, he tries to scar the image into his brain, into his skin, so he can never forget, so he can remember every time he comes close to tasting forgiveness against another man's lips, every time he thinks maybe he will be okay after all--

He wants to remember this. He wants it to hurt. He deserves it, after all.

"Why did you do it?" Andrés asks, voice so quiet, yet so loud inside the small living room, so loud it echoes inside Martín's head.

He doesn't know what to say, he doesn't know anything at all.

"I didn't mean to," he settles for saying in the end, his voice steady. He has no tears left to cry. He has no words left to say. No breath left to breathe.

They stand there, frozen in time, frozen in place, like a painting.

"You didn't mean to?" Andrés repeats with a scoff, and he looks ready to leave again, and Martín wants him to stay, he desperately wants Andrés to stay, for just another second, for just another minute--

Martín would give 20 years of his life to have Andrés for 20 seconds.

"You have to believe me, Andrés," he says, "please," he begs, "I would never do something like this but she--"

"She?" Andrés asks, and Martín feels the tears he thought he ran out of return to his eyes, his blood like ice in his veins.

He nods, crosses his arms over his chest again, and it feels a lot like he is hugging himself, a comfort he doesn't deserve, but he allows himself anyway, because he so desperately needs it at that moment.

His chin is trembling. "She--I was too drunk and she--" a sob breaks out of his chest, he clenches his eyes shut, so he doesn't have to see anything, he wants to press his hands against his ears, so he doesn't have to hear anything, but he forces himself not to, to not be childish like that, to be an adult.

He can almost hear his dad, now. Inside his head. It's been a long time since Martín has heard the man's voice. He thought he forgot it, but no. It's crystal clear, and clearly, very clearly his dad; of course Martín hasn't forgotten, how does one even forget something like that?

"Martín--" Andrés starts, but Martín shakes his head, desperate, he is so desperate he will do anything to keep Andrés inside the room for just another second--

He opens his eyes, looks up, he wants Andrés to look into his eyes, to see that he is telling the truth, to see that Martín would never lie to him. Andrés is looking at him, eyes brown, always so brown, a shade Martín can never describe but loves with everything he has, everything he knows--

The words come spilling out, then. Like water spilling out of a glass that's too full. "I tried to stop her--I swear I did, Andrés, but she--you have to believe me--I told her--I said I have a--a boyfriend--but she--please, believe me, Andrés--"

He sees Andrés drop the bag from his hand, he hears it hit the ground with a muffled sound, he feels the air in the room change, shift and warp like it's a physical object.

He feels himself, the glass full of water, drop from the edge, drop, drop, it feels like he will never hit the ground--but he does, he does, so suddenly that it actually hurts, deep down, it aches, and the water goes everywhere, the glass, Martín, shattering into tiny pieces.

Andrés crosses the distance that seemed like miles between them in just a second.

For a hot breath, Martín thinks Andrés will hit him for making excuses, his dad never liked it when he made excuses--

But, Andrés would never, Martín knows this. Martíns knows a lot of things.

He doesn't know why Andrés is hugging him.

He still buries his head in the crook of the man's neck, inhaling his scent, the smell of home, the smell he has come to associate with love; and his arms go around Andrés, pressing the man closer, closer, Martín wants to bury himself inside Andrés' chest and never come out again.

"You have to--please, believe me--" he is still babbling, almost incoherent, through the sobs and the tears.

"Shh," Andrés says, and he sound a little breathless himself, voice watery. "I believe you, mi amor."

Martín never thought he would ever hear Andrés say that to him, ever again. He thought he would never be inside Andrés' arms like this, ever again.

He doesn't know what it was he said, what it was he did, he thinks Andrés will still leave in the end, but he is thankful for the small mercy all the same, for the mere minutes he has left, for the small sips Andrés allows him to take, he is thankful, even though he wants to drink Andrés through a straw.

They stand like that, for a long time. Martín doesn't count.

Andrés never loosens his hold, not even a little. He holds Martín close, tight, he holds Martín--

And, oh, _to be held._

When Martín finally stops crying, Andrés takes him to the bathroom.

Martín allows Andrés to take his coat off, and nothing else. Andrés cleans them both up, fully clothed.

In their bathroom where they shared so many kisses, where Martín washed Andrés' hair, where they brushed their teeth next to each other, shoulder to shoulder, Andrés cleans another woman's imprints off Martín.

Martín has his hands pressed to his eyes, he doesn't want to look at Andrés while Andrés looks at him, but Andrés keeps telling him _it's okay,_ it's okay, it will be okay.

He says a lot of things. I love you, he says. I will never stop loving you, Martín, he says. It wasn't your fault, he says. I won't leave, he says--

Martín finds it hard to believe him. He tries, he tries, because he knows Andrés would never lie, but he just can't believe him--

As Andrés takes a washcloth and runs it gently over Martín's skin, the bruises on his neck, the scratches on his chest that Andrés sees only after Martín allows him to unbutton his shirt, the scratches that make Andrés clench his jaw so hard that it looks like it hurts--

As Andrés takes a washcloth and runs it gently on Martín's skin, Martín feels him erase the woman's touch, just a little, he can still feel her, feel her everywhere, but just a little bit, he feels a little bit more clean at least.

Andrés takes him to bed. He goes to the kitchen to grab Martín a glass of water, and Martín gets up from the bed, follows him there.

He just thinks, if Andrés has to leave, Martín should see him walk away, he should watch Andrés slip between his fingers like sand, and clench his hands, clench empty air.

Andrés just makes him drink a glass of water, and takes him back to bed.

They lay down, and Andrés presses his forehead against Martín's, breaths gently fanning each other's faces, and oh, how much has Martín missed breathing the air that came out of Andrés' lungs.

"I don't want to sleep," he says, it's a confession, it feels dirty saying out loud, "I don't want you to leave while I'm asleep."

"Mi amor," Andrés says, breathes against Martín's skin, they are so close Martín can feel Andrés' lips move, he can hear Andrés' heart beating. "Tomorrow, when you wake up, I'll be right here, beside you, and I will have coffee ready. We will talk about what happened. And no matter what you tell me, no matter what, I won't leave."

Martín shakes his head gently. "If you don't leave while I'm asleep, you will leave after you hear everything, Andrés, I--the things I did--"

"No, I won't," Andrés interrupts his, gently. "You want to know why?"

"Why?" Martín asks, he has to know why he is so lucky, why Andrés hasn't left already, is holding Martín, even though Martín did the worst thing he could imagine to the man.

"Because I believe you. I believe you told her no, that you never said yes in the first place. I believe that you tried to stop her--" Andrés takes a deep breath, sudden, and Martín feels the man swallow, forcefully. Andrés cleans his throat before he speaks again, yet his voice is hoarse all the same. "And I believe that it's not your fault, it will never be, no matter what you said, what you did, it will never make me think it was your fault."

Martín buries his head against Andrés' neck again, and so what if he is hiding? Andrés lets him.

"Andrés," he starts, but doesn't know what else to say, " _Andrés._ "

"It's okay Martín," Andrés whispers, "everything will be okay."

As Martín falls asleep, he can still hear Andrés talking.

It's okay, the man says. Everything will be okay, the man says. I love you, the man says.

I love you, Andrés says, and Martín knows the man would never lie to him, Martín _knows_ \--so Martín allows himself to believe it.

I love you too, he thinks, as he falls asleep.

*

Next morning, Martín wakes up in the bedroom he has shared with Andrés for years now, _their bedroom_ ; the smell of coffee sweet in the air; with Andrés, the love of his life in his arms, the man's fingers buried in his hair, gently running through it.

"Andrés," he says, voice lazy and deep with sleep, "I love you."

And he knows Andrés will say it back.

fin.

**Author's Note:**

> yea pls dont judge me for this bc its how i cope idc if its cheesy and ooc


End file.
